I just read George Siemens post Will online lectures destroy universities? He makes the point that despite articles like Why free online lectures will destroy universities – unless they get their act together fast : Statements like “universities are obsolete” or “universities are dying” are comical. And this is something that I’ve been thinking (and writing – see Physics Lectures ) about for a long time. Here’s the point: It’s incredibly easy to capture and distribute lectures. Instead, we should be looking for the Best Lecture and work our specifics around that.

Look, as altruistic as it may seem to give away all your content, ideas, lecture notes, videos, slides and even articles and books, for those who actually opt to do so, there are also excellent rewards. Increasingly, due to the good offices of CreativeCommons, much of the content on the web can be legally repurposed or appropriated for other use. Web 2.0 open scholarship

January 2013: CreativeCommons Infographic: Licenses Explained. July 2013: Reading: “Student use of recorded lectures”. Keep the creative juices flowing and work on my other ideas on paper- and e-books and publishing / self-publishing in general – I have more ideas than time so this will be tough, especially when/if the MSc starts. May 2013). What about you?

'For the longest time teachers and lecturers have held the monopoly on the production of academic content. Schools, colleges and universities that support the ethos of student generated content will find themselves tapping directly into the rich motherlode of creativity and innovation of this generation of learners offers to society. What are the implications of this trend?

Clark argued that lectures are a relic of the medieval age, and complained that modern university teaching rooms are not tech friendly. But his outright dismissal of the lecture as a legitimate pedagogical method left many of the delegates reaching for their laptops and harsh tagging him. He cited Donald Bligh's seminal book 'What's the use of lectures?', he asked. Fair point.

It started off in sedate style a few years ago, when several students began to ask if they could audio record my lectures and seminars to play back later. Next came the introduction of the lecture capture tools, video and audio as well as the ability to synchronise these in sequence with slides. Soon students were tweeting the highlights and soundbites of lectures, and now they are liveblogging entire sessions from start to finish. Many lecturers object to this 'technology enhanced exhibitionism', and in some cases ban capture tools from their lecture halls.
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At the EDUCAUSE 2011 conference today, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Hal Abelson – founding director of Free Software Foundation and CreativeCommons. He presented on the state of openness in education. While on the surface openness is gaining traction through scholarship and publication, content providers and journal publishers are starting to push back. During the talk, he used the image below (from this article – pdf) to argue that journal publishers have a monopoly.
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Salman Khan, he of Khan Academy fame, has said that the “ flipped classroom ” model — in which students watch or listen to pre-recorded lectures over the Web, on their own time rather than during class — liberates instructors to finally make real connections with their students. By focusing that valuable face-to-face classroom time on exercises that put the lessons learned during lectures into actual practice (doing the homework at school), instructors are supporting the part of the learning process (the “doing”) that students really retain.
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When professors finished their lectures, the real learning began in study groups and teaching assistants’ office hours. This work by [link] is licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 This work by [link] is licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 'Most of us remember many lessons we learned from others in our early childhood, both in the home and outside. We then started school and learned from teachers, but also by watching, playing, and talking with our friends. ” 5. 1991).
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